14ymedio/Swing Completo, Havana, 4 November 2024 — The absence of players like Guillermo Avilés and Yasmany Tomás has generated suspicions about the offensive and pitching capacity of the Cuban national team. At the gates of the Premier 12 tournament, which will be held between November 13 and 18 in Japan, Taiwan and Mexico, coach Armando Johnson has had to go out to defend the exclusion of Avilés and the stay of Yadir Drake and Ariel Martínez.
“The squad looks slow, desperately slow, and the long-range batters stand out for their absence,” said the specialized media Pelota Cubana USA. The same space described the pitching as “implausible,” upon registering throws below 90 miles per hour.
“In modern baseball where breaking-ball pitches exceed that speed, the Cuban team presents itself, ironically, with a straight that in another time would have been worthy of a young pitcher,” warned journalist Yordano Carmona.
Despite the criticism of specialized media, Johnson gives a vote of confidence to Rafael Viñales and reaffirms the decision to leave out Guillermo Avilés, the left-hander who hit above .400 in the preparation stops in Ulsan, South Korea. In addition, Avilés had presented an acceptable level with the Alazanes team in the National Series.
“At first we talked about 14 pitchers, but what we have seen in the course of these stops is that Viñales was very good, as was Guillermo Avilés,” argued the national coach. “Viñales is more versatile than Avilés, and that’s why we decided on him,” he added.
In the midst of the controversy, the arrival of the best closer of Japanese professional baseball, Raidel Martínez, to the national team has brought hope to Armando Johnson.
Another questioned absence is that of Yasmany Tomás. The Facebook space of DPorto Sports LLC commented that this baseball player, with experience in the Major Leagues of the United States, one of those “discarded” by the Cuban Baseball Federation, is “the top trailer pitcher in the Pacific League of Mexico.”
The absence of Tomás, according to the same space, “is due more to a personal issue with someone in management than to sports questions.”
For Pelota Cubana USA, baseball on the Island “has gone from being a spectacle of great figures to a showcase of isolated players who desperately seek to leave the country before getting lost in mediocrity.”
italic pelota
Cuba’s expectations in the Premier 12 are reserved. The team of coaches shaped by Armando Johnson and Pedro Luis Lazo said in Seoul that the goal is to “advance to the Super Round, and then try to reach the podium.”
Yordano Carmona says that “the decline of Cuban baseball is not an isolated phenomenon; it is a reflection of the blow that Cuban society has suffered in the last 10-15 years.” The journalist regrets that the National Series became “a survival tournament,” in which “talented young people escape in search of contracts abroad, and veterans without professional options fill the teams.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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